


The Chicken Noodle Soup Fiasco

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sick!bellarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the following prompt: "We’re both sick and we both grabbed for the last can of soup at the store AU"</p><p>Warning: shameless fluff.<br/>*</p><p> </p><p>  <i>There’s a man standing in front of her, tall, dark curly hair and everything but that’s not what catches Clarke’s eye. It’s his filthy little fingers wrapped around her can of soup.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“I will sneeze on you.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chicken Noodle Soup Fiasco

**Author's Note:**

> I was sick and I stumbled upon this prompt so I figured irony is a bitch and it might be a good time to write this. :D
> 
> Warning: 100% fluff. Shameless fluff.

 

It wasn’t like Clarke asked to be sick. She just asked for a day off work, twenty four hours in which she could shamelessly wear sweatpants, let her hair go frizzy and lie around in bed watching whatever shitty show was on TV.

She was doing all of those things now, but her head was killing her, she couldn’t remember what it was like to be able to breathe through your nose and she was like ninety percent sure she just coughed up her lung.

It was the flu. Of course it was, something she must have picked up in the hospital. It wasn’t hard to imagine that possibility when Clarke knows that being stressed and not getting enough sleep equals to shitty immunity ready to let any virus catch on.

But all the rationalizing didn’t help when Octavia peeked through the door to Clarke’s room, a semi-apologetic look on her face. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright?”

Clarke met Octavia Blake a few months ago, when the brunette appeared on her doorstep after she’d posted an ad looking for a roommate. They took to liking each other quick enough and Octavia could cook. Hell, Octavia _loved_ to cook. She was dream roommate material.

“Yeah, don’t worry-“a cough interrupts Clarke, and she just waves her hand. “No, I’ll be fine. Go. Have fun. Say hi to Lincoln for me.”

Octavia looks torn but she’s out the door when Clarke raises her eyebrows. Clarke might be sick as hell but that doesn’t mean she’s going to allow her roommate to postpone a date she’s been looking forward to for weeks.

She can do this on her own. She totally can.

It takes her five minutes to get ready to get out of her bed, and then five more to stumble to kitchen, opening the cabinets and the fridge. She just wants chicken noodle soup. That’s all. Preferably canned, there’s no way in hell she’s actually cooking.

But there’s nothing between Cheerios and spaghetti where there should be a can of chicken soup. Nothing. An inch of dust, sure, but no soup.

Clarke isn’t sure how she makes it, but she pushes her feet into her boots and throws on a jacket, completely heedless of what she looks like. She is a doctor, she is sick and she’s going to cough in the face of whoever wants to say something about it.

The corner store looks like literal paradise in Clarke’s flu-induced haze and she rushes over, dragging her feet through the snow as fast as possible. The little bell chimes over her head and she sees the cashier raising his head but promptly returning it to where it was scanning some articles on the counter. So she looks _that_ bad. Good.

Her eyes scan the aisle before locking in on the last can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and then she’s shoving people out of her way and standing in front of the shelf like she’s the queen victorious.

God, it’s so close she can almost smell it.

She props up on her toes and stretches her hand (screw being short and screw whoever decided to put the last can on the highest shelf) until her fingers are almost touching the label and-

The can is gone.

She turns around so fast and curses herself for doing so – her head hurts even more, throbbing pain shooting through.

There’s a man standing in front of her, tall, dark curly hair and everything but that’s not what catches Clarke’s eye. It’s his filthy little fingers wrapped around her can.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“Pretty sure it isn’t,” he smirks and – who the fuck smirks, anyways?

“I saw it first – I was just about to—wait, you can’t just grab other people’s soups!”

He shrugs, as if to say that he doesn’t care, which only helps in setting her further off. She needs this soup. This is her soup, she saw it first and she’ll fight him for that stupid chicken noodle generic Campbell shit soup.

“I’m sick,” she growls.

He shrugs again. “So am I.”

“I need it more.”

“Terribly sorry, Princess,” he rolls his eyes lazily and only then does she notice the dark circles under them. “Forgot royalty gets used to having dibs on everything.”

She steps back, sure her eyes are probably boggling out of her head. Does she know him? No, no she doesn’t. So what the fuck-

“I will fucking _sneeze_ on you.”

Raising a challenging eyebrow over bloodshot eyes and with voice hoarse from coughing – much like her own, he speaks again. “Bring it on, Princess. I’m already sick.”

She tries to, it’s not that she doesn’t actually try to sneeze because she totally does, looks up at the fluorescent lights overhead but she can’t. And the guy is grinning, the can still in his hand.

“Please,” she tries again, desperate – she _did_ just try to sneeze on a stranger over a soup. “My roommate is gone and I have no food in my apartment and I am dying. I just need the soup.”

Clarke thinks she must have said something right because his features soften and then a crease forms between his brows.

“You’re sick and your roommate left you alone?”

“Yeah, so if I could just get the soup-“

“That’s not right,” he shakes his head wildly, looking as horrible as she feels. “You- ok, we’ll share.”

“We’ll what?” she asks in disbelief, thinking the flu is messing with her hearing again.

“We’ll share. I’m not – you look like shit, I’m not gonna leave you alone.”

“I don’t even know you!” Clarke exclaims, taking a step back. Sure, she wants the soup but he might be a serial killer. A really weird one who stalks out his prey in corner stores and fights them over really crappy canned soups.

“Sure you do. My name is Bellamy Blake, I’m sick and I need this soup. Now you tell me your name, because I already know you’re sick too and thirsty for a can of Campbell soup. We’re regular friends here, Princess.”

Clarke opens her mouth to say something but then it dawns on her. “Bellamy Blake, as in, Octavia’s asshole big brother Bell?”

“Is that what she tells people?” he frowns but doesn’t correct her.

“That, and that you’re a mother hen. Fine, you can take me home now.”

He chuckles and it’s kind of charming. Can anyone be charming when their hair is greasy and they’ve got a jacket over a pair of pajamas? Clarke isn’t sure but she thinks Bellamy might. Or maybe it’s just the flu talking and craving someone to take care of her.

“I still don’t know your name.”

“It’s Clarke. Clarke Griffin.”

“O is the roommate who left you for dead?” he asks, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Shit, I taught her better. I’m sorry.”

And then he looks almost sheepish and embarrassed which is just – weird. Yeah. Weird. Not oddly charming. Just weird. But she swats his arm just to lift the tension. “I made her go. She had a date.”

“Lincoln?”

“Yeah, Lincoln,” Clarke laughs but she regrets it the next moment when her dry lower lip cracks. Fuck, she hates being sick.

His place is apparently just around the corner and they make small talk while walking over there. It mostly consists of complaining about the snow and shitty weather which shouldn’t be surprising for Boston in February, but it’s a good topic.

Warmth envelops her the moment she steps into his apartment and that’s it. She’s not leaving ever again. She’s pretty sure her fingers are chunks of ice by now and she rubs them against one another gingerly, feeling returning to them.

“So, this is it. The med bay,” he gestures towards his living room and she takes a step forward. There’s a couch, with a pile of blankets – a couple of them thrown hastily aside, and the coffee table is cluttered with meds of all sorts, tissues and empty mugs.

It really looks like a med bay but it also looks great to someone who’s sick.

“Thank you.”

It comes out as more grateful than she feels and Clarke feels her cheeks reddening but if Bellamy sees it, he doesn’t say anything, just nods politely and excuses himself to the kitchen.

“Oh, and feel free to hog as many blankets as you’d like,” he tells her before leaving.

It takes her only a minute of awkward shuffling around before she shrugs and plops down on the couch, figuring that this is a weird situation anyways and he _did_ offer. A pink blanket looks particularly cozy and she cocoons herself in it in matter of seconds.

Her head is still a mess, too heavy for her shoulders, but she resists the urge to fall asleep before she’s had the soup. She fought for that soup.

Only then does she remember to text Octavia.

_this is a check in text in case they find me dead in a ditch 2morro – im w ur brother hes a mother hen_

Her roommate is going to give her so much grief for texting like, in Octavia’s words, “a straight white boy” but she doesn’t care. Her phone falls somewhere in the pile of blankets and there is a chirp soon after but she doesn’t check it.

Instead, she tries to remember what Octavia has told her about Bellamy. That he’s older than her, seven years – meaning he’s five years older than Clarke, that he’s a total history nerd which is why he teaches it at a high school somewhere, that he’s protective as hell and can be a mother hen at times.

What she didn’t mention is that he’s hot. Sort of. Not horribly so and Clarke knows nothing’s going to happen with a guy who’s seen you blow your nose and beg for the sweet relief of death – something she’s definitely going to do, but it’s mildly unnerving.

She should have been prepared for it.

Before she can start fussing about it, Bellamy’s back with a tray in his hands. If Clarke’s nose worked, she would have probably been able to register the smell of chicken soup but nothing in her body works anymore so she settles for looking at it.

Also, there’s a pair of really fluffy socks in his pocket and she raises her eyebrows at the sight of them.

Bellamy looks sort of sheepish, cheeks growing faintly redder on his tan, freckled face as he takes a seat next to her on the couch. “They’re for you. I figured you’d want them- you looked cold.”

 _Wow. Okay_.

“Yeah, I- that’s great, thanks.”

She pushes away her blanket just a bit to put them on her feet and she has to suppress a moan of relief when all she can feel is fluffiness.

The soup is great when she finally tastes it, and it’s a little bit spicier than she’s used to. Bellamy says it’s his fault because he thinks spicy things help and he might have gone a bit overboard with chili peppers and paprika, but she shakes her head because it’s good – it’s not like she’d be able to taste anything if it weren’t for the spices.

He makes them tea and finally, after she’s told him to stop fussing about, they settle in on the couch, wrapped in their respective blankets and leaning against one another. There’s a crappy history documentary playing on the TV and Clarke is slipping away even before she’s realized it.

 

She wakes up to the sound of music booming in the street below them and two hushed voices somewhere in the apartment. Her head feels better, not as heavy, and she blinks while looking around – she doesn’t recognize the place, but then the memory of fighting Bellamy over a can of soup kicks in.

Not long after that, she realizes it’s Bellamy’s and Octavia’s voices coming from the kitchen and she pushes the blanket away, stumbling over to where they are.

Apparently, they’re in the middle of a fight and she stops when she sees Octavia’s furrowed brows and Bellamy’s scowl.

“-you can’t leave people when they’re sick!”

“Shit, Bell, she told me to, it’s not like-“Octavia gestures toward the living room and then she realizes Clarke is leaning on the doorway. The furrow is gone, replaced by a grin.  “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten. PM.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah, you passed out on me. And I didn’t even talk about history,” Bellamy grins and then beckons her over, to where a steaming mug of tea is already set on the table. She wants to kiss him. She seriously does.

“Ok, but Clarke, can you tell my brother that you practically shoved me out the doorway when I asked if I should go?” Octavia rolls her eyes, stare pointed at Bellamy.

“I did,” she confirms, feeling sort of guilty that they were fighting over her. “I did, it’s fine. Besides, another Blake took care of me so-“

“What was it that you called him? Ah, a mother hen.”

This time it’s Clarke turn to look sheepish and she nearly stuffs her face in the steaming tea. Octavia looks proud. Bellamy looks – fond. Sort of. She’s not sure, the flu is still messing with her head and her muscles are sore like she’d been digging for the last five days.

“Still better than ‘asshole brother’,” Bellamy sticks his tongue out at Octavia. “Because that’s what Clarke told me you call me. Asshole brother. Seriously, O, after everything I’ve done for you?”

“You _are_ asshole-y,” Octavia shrugs but pats his head benevolently.

Octavia stays for a while after that, telling them about her date with Lincoln which was apparently great (if her words and her flushed cheeks are anything to go by), and then she stands up to leave.

“You coming, Clarke?”

Clarke is torn between going home but home seems so far away and she’s not sure if she can make it. But before she’s had a say, Bellamy interjects.

“She can’t go!”

When Octavia raises her eyebrows at him, he blushes. “I mean – she’s sick. It’s- uh- we’re probably contagious.”

Octavia eyes them with mild disgust. “You’re right. Stay quarantined. I brought you food so you’re good.”

“We are,” Clarke assures her. Her voice broke down at some point and now it’s raspy and horrible and she can’t even cough anymore without her insides shaking. “Thanks, Octavia.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She’s out in a flurry of brown hair and smiles, and the door slams shut behind her.

Clarke knows that she should probably feel weird about staying with someone else, somewhere else, but she’s actually too sick and comfortable to care. So she doesn’t.

Bellamy grins at her over the table and she realizes she must’ve said that out loud. “Glad to hear that, Princess.”

“Uh- I- whatever, you’re okay,” she settles on rolling her eyes and crossing her arms at her chest but he’s not fazed.

He does, however, set a plate in front of her. “Chicken with garlic.”

“Garlic?”

_You’re not making out with someone who’s seen you like this. Cut it out, Griffin._

“My mom’s go-to recipe when Octavia or I were sick,” he explains, cutting into his own serving. “Garlic helps, apparently. It’s got antiseptic properties or something.”

“It does kinda stink, though,” Clarke offers.

“We’re both eating it, we’ll be fine.”

And they are fine. Well, not fine because they cough and try not to do it in each other’s faces, and their noses are stuffed and Bellamy has a killer headache of his own but –

They’re not hungry, they’ve taken their meds for taking down the fever and it’s warm. So it’s good.

“So, what’s up with your mom?” she finally asks absent-mindedly when they’re washing the dishes. “Octavia never mentioned her.”

Bellamy tenses up next to her and she flinches. “Shit – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

“No, it’s fine,” he shakes his head and then the frown is gone. “Our mom is dead. Overdose, when I was nineteen and Octavia was twelve. She – she’s had a rough life, it shouldn’t have surprised us but it did.”

Octavia never mentioned that. All she said was that her brother’s been taking care of her for as long as she knows and that was that. No mom, no dad. The dad, or dads probably weren’t in the picture, Clarke guessed. She didn’t want to bring that particular subject up with Bellamy.

It was hard as it is. She could see he was trying not to frown and she knew what he must be feeling. You want someone to know what’s happened but you don’t want to bother them and you don’t want to be the one to tell them.

If Clarke knows anything, she knows that feeling. So she takes Bellamy’s wet hand in hers and squeezes.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” His smile is faint, lips almost twisting up to a sneer and Clarke recognized that particular sort of bitterness. “I mean, we loved her. We loved her, still visit her grave and- but she left us. It’s hard not to resent that.”

“I know. She’s your mom and you love her but she made a shitty choice.”

He raises his head to look up at her and Clarke knows she has to say something.

“My dad died when I was eighteen. He had this huge fight with my mom and I begged him not to go because it was raining and he was angry-“the memory still makes her stomach clench and, along with her head, it’s a really bad feeling. “He had a car accident, swerved off of the road – it was slippery and- he was dead on impact, there wasn’t anything they could do. But they didn’t find him until morning and my mom wouldn’t go look for him.”

She still remembered her mom’s unflinching gaze while she cried and begged her to go look for dad. To let _her_ go look for dad.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything but – it’s still shit, you know?”

He knows. He squeezes her hand and it’s warm through the water from the dishes and she feels sort of like crying.

“Aren’t we a mess, Princess?” he smiles and brings his thumb up to wipe off a stray tear from her cheek. His eyes are soft when he looks at her and she hugs him. She doesn’t even know him but he’s warm and his chuckle resonates through his chest when she presses her head against it.

It’s different this time around, when they’re back on the couch. They don’t stay so far away from each other. Instead – they pile blankets over themselves and Bellamy wraps a hand over her shoulders and she leans further into him. They joke around, she threatens to sneeze on him again, and he only playfully ruffles her hair. Sure, they look like shit and feel like shit but Clarke manages to laugh even if it’s interrupted with a violent fit of coughing.

She does cry again but this time Bellamy’s crying too because they’re watching Marley and Me and Marley is about to die.

“Why does the dog always have to die?” she presses out, blowing her nose loudly into a crumpled paper tissue.

It’s hard crying when you’re sick. Your nose gets more stuffed and Clarke is wheezing instead of crying like a normal human being. It would be funny if it weren’t sad.

“I- fuck,” Bellamy swears under his breath and she’s handing him the tissue because he’s definitely a dog person and his eyes are even redder. “That’s not fair. What did dogs do to Hollywood?”

“Why do they hate them?”

And there they are, in the middle of the night, sitting on his couch in pajamas and sweatpants, greasy-haired and horrible-looking messes who are intermittently coughing and crying.

“Okay, so he was a bit- a bit wild but so what? Look, he made up for it,” Clarke points at the screen, sob choking in her throat. “Why?”

“He deserves love too,” Bellamy protests, rubbing his eyes with a tissue and throwing popcorn at the TV.

“Just because he’s a mess doesn’t mean he’s not lovely and kind and- a great fucking dog, alright?”

“Damn right!”

Clarke makes a mistake of taking her eyes off of the screen to look at Bellamy. His face is red, his eyes are glassy and he’s squeezing his fist like he can threaten the TV into changing the ending. He’s also really, really beautiful and his freckles look like constellations in her hazy mind.

She really likes him.

And then he turns to look at her, passion about the cause of fighting Hollywood about its treatment of dogs still in his eyes, and there must be something he sees and she can’t because the smile he flashes her is bright enough to light up entire Boston and _fuck_ , she’s sick and sad and she really likes him.

It might be completely crazy but she leans in and he doesn’t flinch. Instead – he draws closer and takes a tentative breath before she’s closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his. They’re chapped and dry and the kiss is nothing if not short but he returns it. He returns it and she feels so good about this that the flu stands no chance.

And then they have to breathe because their noses aren’t really working and they come apart, gasping for air and laughing like a pair of kids.

“So, that happened,” she says, leaning back on the couch and breathing, just breathing. She can still feel his lips on hers and it was _great_.

A knot she didn’t know she had was unfurled in her stomach and nothing, not even the flu and the headache and the cough – nothing can bring her down.

“It really did,” he confirms, nodding. His gaze is still trained on her but it’s soft and she’s so relieved to see that he isn’t weirded out.

She should probably be. And he should probably be. But they’re not and she knows better than to question it.

“And all it took was a dead dog,” he adds and she shoves him but then his arms are wrapped around her again and she sinks into his touch. “I was kidding. I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while, ads running on the screen and red lights flashing through his window, before he speaks up.

“When all of this is over, want to go on a date?”

“You wanna go on a date with me? After I threatened to sneeze on you?”

 “I can handle princesses,” he smirks but there’s no heat in his cockiness. He just looks – soft. “And besides, if we could move past that – I think we’re good.”

“Yeah, we’re good. Just feed me, bring me fluffy socks and hug me.”

“Sounds great.”

 

The next time they both get sick like that, two years have passed and they need to rely on Octavia to bring them food and soup. When she sees them curled up on the same old couch, she blinks at them, cocking her head.

“Is this like really weirdly nostalgic for you guys?”

They both flip her off, but they turn to each other when she leaves – silently grateful for someone to bring their pathetic and sick selves food.

“She’s never going to let us live it down, right?”

“Nah,” Clarke smiles. “But I’m really glad I fought you on that soup.

Bellamy kisses her cheek, voice as nasal as hers. “Yeah, me too.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> See, who says I can't write something short and fun?
> 
> If you want to hit me up with prompts or hang out with me in my trash can - I'm [right here](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com)


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